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Abyss: The Long Forgotten Country
Set in the mysterious and unknown realm of the Long Forgotten Country, a place of intrigue and constantly changing realities where islands of strange rock and covered in alien fauna rise from the darknessand take form one minute only to disappear and move the next. where eldritch horrors lurk below the waves of the obsidian sandsea and prowl the empty pitch black skies, sleeping for timeless eons or hunting for new prey. where humanity lives out a gothic and sobering existance sequestered upon fortified islands where light dispels the darkness and offers sanctuary for the weary travellers of the endless night. The journey of a lone wanderer as he journeys through the endless night in search of the secrets which surround the forgotten country and keep those trapped within from escaping their nightmarish existance. The Forgotten Country is maintained and operated by a device known as the Mechanism, an ancient eldritch device created by a race which predates the universe in order to facilitate their exodus from their own destroyed cosmos. it is powered by a machine known as the Sun Engine which by appearance is a large series of rotating rings (at seperate radials) each with a collector in the shape of a sphere, all of these focus energy produced from the central core which to the naked eye appears as a burning star, complete with energy arcs of incandescent light (the core itself is actually a lodestone fragment contained at the point of fracturing within a containment field). as a safehaven to escape the destruction of their cosmos, the Forgotten Country also acts as a habitat for a number of creatures which were saved from the destruction by the Builders whom have created biomes for the many lifeforms, however over time the safeguards on these locations has degraded and some creatures now freely roam the endless night, even going so far as forming new nests and evolving into new forms of life the race which created the Forgotten Country existed as a hive species, each individual was the size of a small rodent and possessed a heightened albeit simple intelligence, this intelligence would become augmented when the individuals of the species 'coupled' which involved two seperate entities attaching to each other and forming a semi permanent bond (which could only be broken by extreme trauma) thus becoming a new entity with a compound intellifence. outside of this bond each individual had a degree of telepathic bond with any local entities and thus could react to stimulus some distance away. individuals that bonded would continue to bond with others, forming larger and more complex entities until an Alpha Singularity point where the individual became so large and intelligent that its internal components would form a womb within which would grow clutches of eggs fertilized by the gestalt mass that would then be deposited in a safe location to be born and begin the cycle anew. each individual that reached the singularity would then continue to grow and absorb, even taking other forms of life into itself in a perceived act of 'love' until it eventually grows to the point of an Omega Singularity where upon so many lifeforms have been absorbed that the individual has become a massive, often gigatic lifeform with an extremely powerful psionic signature, these lifeforms are often perceived as gods by the smaller variants and are venerated as the goal of all members of the species who see the near immortality and hive community of the Omega Singularities as heavenly. Alpha Singularities are responsible for most if not all technological construction and scientific pursuit within the society of the species, and as such most things are designed around their general size and frame work. Omega Singularities possess psionc abilities which allow them to directly reshape the environment around them to a degree with their minds, as such their creations appear more organic and are often organic in construction Professions *Claner - synonomous with slaver, they are those who earn their living by finding and capturing the clanless to transport to a market for sale to the various clans vying for power to bolster their numbers. as such they have a poor reputation and are disliked by most however due to their profession requiring them to survive the wilds, they are considered a necessary evil *Caravaner - the lifeblood of most settlements, they travel the sandsea from place to place in order to buy and sell wares and supplies, usually escorted by caravan guards for protection *Wayfarer - explorers and oppurtunists, they travel and map the sandsea, always looking for new and safer routes between settlements as well as rare and unique goods Notes *conception is extremely difficult *humans randomly appear in the world *humans are often collected by 'Claners' and sold to the clans in the buyers market *all clan members are marked with the clan sigil on their face, identifying them as a member of that clan for the rest of their life *everyone inadvertently speaks the same language *native creatures can reproduce easily *there is no natural light what so ever *almost all native creatures flee light or react harshly to it *people arrive from all time periods, meaning technology is blendid together in an often disjointed manner *'normal' elements are rare so people have adapted to use elements fround locally *fog covers most areas of the Sandsea and Empty Sea *malfunctions within the Mechanism are the cause of 'outside' life being drawn into the Forgotten Country *anomalies usually take the form of a tear or crack in spacetime (though the crack/tear is actually the nexus of a anomaly field, meaning those who can observe it are already trapped within it *all life does not die unless killed and ages extremely slowly *humans are able to survive only a tiny portion of the Long Forgotten Countries terrain *the Old Continent lays far to the east and is the home of the Old Children, said to be living gods who curse all but flesh *several children of the Dra'carn inhabit the Long Forgotten Country *the Long Forgotten Country exists because its makers made a pact with the Stolen City/City of Doors and now exist as a part of its complex network of realities *The 'Spiders' make their home between the Silver Stones, ensnaring careless travellers * Locations The Distant Shore The Sandsea The Empty Sea The Old Continent - The Red Coast - The Urush (Uru-tsh Empire) The Stolen CIty The Fleshlands The Foglands The Observatory Fallen London - admiralty survey office - university - your lodgings baltitudes house of vision - light sources caminus yards - experimental equipment carrows naval surplus - weapon systems mrs plentys shipside provisioneers - supplies wolfstack exchange - exotic goods iron and misery company - engine systems shipyard venderbight museum grand sanitorium arcade of sighs - supplies hollow temple - secrets charnel lounge - hospice Clans Factions *Made Men No one is entirely sure where the made men come from or how they continue to appear as they do, rising from the ground of the fleshlands like cadaverous spectres, but it is agreed that they are both terrifying and unpredictably vile as they are both intelligent and maliciously inclined towards those not of their kind (due to the fact that they trade primarily in the tissues of living beings, useing them as both clothing and building material) *Drowned Men Those lost to the Empty Sea, like most in the Long Forgotten Country cannot die, but instead are changed by their environment and so, the drowned men having succumb to the seemingly crystal clear water have become something less than human. Enfused with the power of the tormenting currents of the Empty Sea they seek to drown all life save those who have earned their boon. *The Night Sisters a powerful matriarchy of witches who have adapted to life in the Long Forgotten Country by surrendering most vestiges of their humanity and embracing the natural powers and transformative energies of their new home. as such they have command over mysterious and otherworldly powers earning them the title of witches from their peers, and while outwardly appearing human, the more powerful each member gets the more and more they are transformed from within into something all together alien. ruled by the Nightmother, a semi immortal woman who has long since abandoned her mortal existance for power, she is a young and beautiful on the outside, but a twisted monster within. *The Temple of the Dawn *Outsider Cults